>In broad terms, the messages seek to remind the elite that Ramses had been chosen by the gods and claimed his ancestry from Amun-Re and Maat. Ramses had come to the throne relatively late at the age of 25 years old following the death of his father Seti. Having not been born a king, Ramses used the obelisk as a propaganda tool early in his reign to reinforce his supremacy and divine nature.
Fun facts, prophet Moses is the most mentioned prophet in the Quran even more than Muhammad. The main protagonist during Moses time is Pharaoh and his fake claim of divinity is recorded verbatim in the Quran [1].
Pharaoh declared, “O chiefs! I know of no other god for you but myself. So bake bricks out of clay for me, O Hamân, and build a high tower so I may look at the God of Moses, although I am sure he is a liar.”
Exodus it's fake. Sorry, Jews, but it has no historical roots when the Egyptians were the 'log dudes' from its era, kinda like syslogd under Linux/Unix. They jot down everything, and yet we have no proper sources.
I've seen a few articles on this now. They keep calling it a "secret" message and "hieroglyphic cryptography," but then talk about how sufficiently literate people are supposed to understand it, and the content is along the lines of "The god-king cannot be dethroned" and "Make offerings to the gods." Nothing about this sounds like it was intended to be kept secret or confidential from anyone.
This seems more like fancy typesetting than cryptography, combined with an awareness that the writing at the top of a big tall obelisk will only be readable from a distance.
Such writing would give non-standard meanings to signs, or drawn them in non-standard ways, or use entirely invented signs. It would be a puzzle to work out the meaning, and I imagine most people who weren't very literate would be stumped. They certainly stumped egyptologists for a while when the first examples were discovered.
I am looking at the last image in the article, captioned "The encrypted message instructs the viewer to appease the gods with offerings". The picture shows ... a person kneeling in front of a throned figure, offering something with both hands. Is something about this message supposed to be hidden?
From the way they describe how the message is read, it doesn't seem written very plainly at all. It would be odd to assume that this knowledge was accessible to many people if the manner in which it's written is only found in certain circumstances.
I believe enciphered hieroglyphics were covered by David Kahn in The Codebreakers. If memory serves, literate people wouldn't have too much difficulty solving them. The idea was the the plaintext would seem more significant to the reader/codebreaker after they labored for a few hours or a few days working it out. The labor required would add emphasis to what was being communicated.
In this article in French, they mention hieroglyphs encoded in the way arms and legs are drawn of a figure on the throne of Tutankhamun, and that only 6 Egyptologists in the whole worlds are able to decode them.
Hmmm, I wonder how mainstream these ideas are? Do other Egyptologists respect them?
The idea of cryptohieroglyphs is accepted as true it seems (at least in France), even though most Egyptologist think they are highly interpretative: think about literature and how some literature expert would interpret Poe's books (sorry only classic US author i know beside Kerouac), except worse.
Still, it's clear ancient egyptians loved their puzzles, the clear interpretation of what they mean is what elude us.
Poe didn't really write books. He's most famous for poems and short stories. He wrote one novel ( The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket) and published a collection of poems.
Not that it matters. Just a bit of trivia. The only thing you need to know is that he's a gazillion times better than Kerouac, who did write books and shouldn't have.
I suspect, that in the context of "reputable academically sound Egyptologist" the number "6" is a bumper crop of Egyptologists. The set of reputable academics in these fields is always a lot smaller than you'd like. I think that's why there's so many cranks.
I struggle with Egyptology as a whole. you watch even mainstream, reputable documentaries on Ancient Egypt and there is a lot of what and little why, and it makes you wonder how much of it is actual science and how much of it is just the most exciting available interpretation of the facts to please the Egyptians/draw in viewers. the Egyptian authorities want tourists, and control archaeology licenses tightly, and "we found a scroll that mentions moving some building materials near the great pyramid" sells far less plane tickets than "we found a scroll written by the architect of The Great Pyramid!!!!"
> and it makes you wonder how much of it is actual science
I don't wonder. You can look up egyptian texts with translations and pronunciation guides. We have literally hundreds of thousands of discarded papyri and plenty of papers detailing the archaeological processes of their excavations and interpretations. It's a gold-mine of explicit documentation about their practices and beliefs and logistics over millennia. We know about their diets, their genetics, how their ruling class changed over time, how they interpreted life and death, to the extent where we can draw likely religious transmission among stories with other near-east religions. The extent of evidence we have demonstrating actual knowledge is better than anything else in the ancient world.
Granted, interpretation isn't science, but it's still expected to be presented rationally. The linguistics that yielded the translation itself proved empirically very reliable.
There are many cranks into Egyptian history with many different agendas, though, and I'm sure many of them call themselves egyptologists.
This is a strange viewpoint, do you care to elaborate? I mean, for ancient Egypt, understanding the writing has its origin in a very clear, well understood event and a very specific researcher's career (Rosetta Stone and Champollion), after which there is a sea of research papers which anyone can go and (spend an education and career) judging for themselves. The documentaries easily skip all that but it's not a big mystery that "all that" is there?
It would be nice if someone created a video similar to the "distance ladder" video but for hieroglyphs. Beyond Champollion and into the progress to now. That would be fascinating. It may exist already.
I must say I'm a little unhappy with how this thread has been usurped to be not about the writing on the obelisk but the appropriateness of it being in Paris. The latter is an important question with no easy answers but completely unrelated to the former.
Yes and the article also mentions the obelisk was surrounded by scaffolding in preparation for the Olympic games, so feel free to discuss scaffolding, Olympic games, restoration work on ancient monuments, Paris' role in Europe, the impact of modern sports events on urban environments, whatever. Doesn't change the fact the OP is literally about alleged hidden messages on an Egyptian obelisk that happens to be standing in Paris. Had the guy who brought this up been writing about an obelisk still standing in Egypt, how appropriate would it feel to change the subject of the discussion to, I don't know, the legitimacy of Egypt's present government or the fact that a not-so-small number of archaeological sites is being ruined by being part of military compounds? Not very appropriate I'd say.
The whole idea of giving things back to Egypt is currently tainted by the complete lack of professional respect everyone else on the planet has for the guy running things there. I could picture institutions saying they'll send artifacts back and then just dragging their feet until he retires.
"Gee, sorry my ancestors stole that thing from that house a hundred plus years ago. Too bad there's a jerk living in the house right at this moment, that's why it hasn't been returned yet."
It's a little strange to have so little morals you accept a stolen gift from conquerors and don't make the slightest effort to return it over a considerable period of time, even after doing such a thing becomes the accepted moral thing to do...and then suddenly develop a conscience and set of morals so particular that "who is running the country" means you can't return it.
It's almost like it's a very thin excuse and not a legitimate reason.
It doesn't belong to France, and it's not France's place to decide that they don't like the particular guy running things at that moment and thus refuse to return it.
Really, Europe just has a massive problem refusing to acknowledge any of the brutally oppressive colonialism it was responsible for across centuries...
That political entity no longer exists, and the people of Egypt would likely never have willingly parted with the many obelisks and other historical artifacts that have left their shores.
1. You need to draw the line somewhere. It is simply not possible (nor even desirable) to redress all historical wrongs. It seems reasonable to not attempt to redress wrongs which are out of living memory for anyone involved.
2. As others pointed out, the people currently living in Egypt is not the same people who lived there when these things were built anyway, and there was a hell of a lot of conquest to get from there to here. This is not a case where the Ottomans stole it from the original owners. That makes this not a very good candidate for giving it back.
Are the same messages on the obelisk in Central Park? I believe it's essentially the same obelisk. I walk by that one at least once a week. Pretty sad how much the NYC climate has damaged it, though, as opposed to the desert climate it originated from.
While hieroglyphic cryptography is a thing (as is BTW "sportive orthography" in Ancient Egyptian), this is not it. I am all for acknowledging that Ancient Egyptian art is often merging writing and depiction in a way that escapes the unprepared who would point to a prominent figure in a grave wall decoration and say 'this is a picture', then point to some hieroglyphs and say 'that is writing'. It's in principle not wrong but misses the point that frequently the choice of hieroglyphs, their orientation and variations in orthography correspond to details of the depicted subject, while the pictures can often be read out, either by describing the participants and their actions, or by naming the parts.
As for the latter, there's a statue of "Ramesses II (Dyn XIX) as a Child"[1] which shows Horus as a falcon with the sun (rꜥ) on his breast, a child (ms) beneath it, in his hand a sedge plant (sw). Naming the parts—sun, child, sedge—in this order gives rꜥmssw, vocalized raꜥmissaw, roughly maybe approximately [raʕ'missaw], in any event the very name of Ramesses, meaning "He is / was born / brought forth by Ra / the Sun". Note that you'll have to choose to omit ḥr "Horus" although the falcon dominates the sculpture, and that the sedge does not represent a plant but, by virtue of sounding like it, the 3rd person suffix sw "he", so there's some guesswork involved. All said, it's a fine example of a "rebus".
Neither rebus reading nor pictorial description are commonly classified as cryptographic orthography in Egyptology.
The statue demonstrates nicely how acutely aware of their language, their artistic traditions and their writing Egyptian artists were. When we look at the depiction of Pharaoh and Amun on the obelisk as explained by Olette-Pelletier, however, we hardly see any of this. Yes, an arm with an offering on the palm of the hand was often used to write dy "to give", but usually those offerings are triangular bread loaves, not round nw vessels. Yes, the hieroglyph for "ḥtp" looks like a flat rectangle but, again, with a bread offering on it which is missing from the flat rectangle that pharaoh is kneeling on.
I really wonder what the fuzz is about; clearly it's a picture of the king giving offering to the god, and all he does is read out the picture. This is something that you can do with a lot of Egyptian art: there's the king, you know him by the distinctive crown, and there's Amun, which you know again by his distinctive headdress sporting two long feathers. The king is kneeling because he's offering, and he has his arms stretched out presenting stuff because he's, well, giving. The king is giving things to the god. What part of that was not known before, what part of that is cryptographic?
Very interesting. Could this just be a miscommunication caused by a blogger literally looking to write clickbait? Hype up a paper without revealing its main conclusion? I would have no way of knowing if this very literal reading of the scene contains some wordplay that would require knowing how these words sounded.
Well let's say the editors of at least some of the publications that carried the news in a sensationalist tone should've known better but they apparently were more in for more clicks as opposed to critical thinking and informed judgement.
That said I'm no Egyptologist myself as seemingly the journalists aren't, either, but as for me I'm itching to write a scathing takedown of this affair. I'm open to discovering that maybe the originator of the theory was misunderstood by the media, maybe his wording was not clear enough. I guess what I want to say is when you want clicks there's more than one way to do it; my way would roughly be (1) criticize use of the term 'cryptography' when all they do is tell me what they see in the picture: king giving offerings to god; king's sitting on a mat(?), god's standing on a plinth (as is customary); (2) criticize the very specific interpretation they give for this particular depiction when we find this same motive all over the place, all of the time; (3) criticize the claim that only nobles travelling by boat would have been able to see and understand the message when in Ancient Egypt taking a boat to cross the river as well as, as a local of Thebes, taking part in festivities must both have been very commonplace for old and young, rich and poor alike; also, artists in general and, for example, the foremen of worker gangs working on Khufu's pyramid were very well able to use writing and depictions to express themselves.
The messages were not secret at all, they were just written on the face of the obelisk that faces the river. Meaning that only visitors by boat would read them when docking rather than the poor pedestrians using the normal road.
> You see the new and improved Oval Office as it becomes more and more beautiful with love. We handle it with great love and 24 carat gold. That always helps too. But it’s been a lot of fun going over some of the beautiful pictures that were stored in the vaults that were for many, many years, in some cases over 100 years, stored in vaults of the great presidents or almost great presidents or all having a reason for being up every one of them.
It's genuinely not bad as long as you don't have terminally online syndrome. The vast majority of the country, even people who don't like Trump, gets along with their everyday lives without stressing out about him. It's just that most people commenting on forums online are terminally online and get very worked up about things.
> What antique France monuments did France give away just like that for no reason?
It may stretch the definition of "antique" but does the Statue of Liberty count?
Nations give other nations things all the time, and when power changes hands that doesn't negate those gifts of the spirit in which they were offered.
It was kind of the opposite, AIUI; the Ottomans claimed that Muhammad Ali was just a regional governor, but the country was de facto independent; the Ottomans had no ability to control it.
Oh, no, definitely not. I mean, it was the early 19th century; not _literally having slaves_ was considered a dangerously radical experiment that even revolutionary France could only half-commit to. Freedom wasn't a big thing in the early 19th century.
But Egypt under Muhammad Ali was about as independent as any country was at the time, really. It controlled its own domestic and foreign policy, had its own military, and _invaded its nominal suzerain_, taking Syria off the Ottomans.
According to wikipedia[0], the frenchs did think about stealing it during the Napoleonic wars, but didn't. Some time later they "suggested" to the Ottomans that the obelisks be offered, in exchange for a monumental clock[1]
I mean, if you really want to go down this way, it does not really belong to the Egyptians either. It's not because current-day Egyptians share the same land as antiquity Egyptians that they are the same people – countless waves of war, massacres, migrations, emigrations happened in the last 4 millenia.
By that logic who does it belong to? How long does someone need to be in an area to be the "owner" of it. The people on Egypt currently weren't there when it was moved. Why should they get it? The people that were there when it was moved definitely weren't there 3000 years ago when it was made. Did they own it? In fact who owns anything in the world?
That is just silly. Should we demand Iran returns things from Greece, Egypt, etc that they acquired during the Persian empire? Should Egypt return things they acquired from their neighbors in the past?
Depends on "acquired" means. Pillages as part of a war? Then yes, why not give it back? "Acquired" in terms of gifted by the other party, like this Obelisk, then no, that wouldn't make sense. Same goes for purchased.
But things stolen with violence or threat of violence, should probably be returned (if they want it returned). While we shouldn't hold children responsible for the actions of our parents, we can also be better than our parents and return things we know aren't rightfully ours.
Off-topic, but you're probably one of the top 3 persons in the world with the most similar first+last name as myself, with a Levenshtein Distance of only 6 :)
Honestly, I would have more respect for people who do land acknowledgements if they tried to give the land back. I don't think they should (because I believe that we shouldn't attempt to fix the sins of those who are long since dead), but at least then they would be attempting to walk the walk. Right now it comes off very poorly because people go "this land belongs to the natives" and then happily continue to possess it as if saying "well you own this technically" makes everything alright.
You must be well impressed with Gough Whitlam and Eddie Mabo et al then.
> to fix the sins of those who are long since dead
A good number of land right issues and acts of racism began with those long dead and continued forward under the actions of generations that followed, perpetuated in some form by some still living.
In a US context there are still current acts of administration that impact native title and rights to reservations that are current and contentious.
What nations have never been conquered at any time? Rulers come and go. Countries are born and die and become new countries that get conquered and become something else ruled by someone else. Everything in America can be considered "pillaged" by that same standard, but would you see it all returned?
It was too complex to steal, and Ottomans historical alliance with France, while disturbed by Napoleon, was still strong after his coup ended (France had sovereignty over a lot of small territories in the Ottoman empire due to their "protector of the Church" status).
That we don't know what was traded exactly (some people say it's the Cairo clock, but it is unclear and probably false) doesn't matter. The fact that Champollion already translated the rosetta stone from ancient greek and that hieroglyph could now be translated probably had an impact on this decision, especially since among all the Obelisks in egypt, Champollion singled out this particular one.
Yes, probably because the British helped the ottomans push back the Napoleonic army before they could enter 'true' ottoman lands (basically stopped them at Rafah or something, I have to check) then let the ottomans retake Egypt for free, without involving other regional powers (it was under ottoman rules in name only when Napoleon was sent there, and truly ruled by ottomans when he got kicked out). I have _not_ read about the English empire in this era, so I might be absolutely wrong. I mostly know French (and Italian somehow) 'modern' history (and only part of it, im not well read on the first Napoléonic empire, just on the moments before, the moments after, and the late second empire)
While I generally understand the sentiment, I would also argue that most of the countries that have been pillaged of artifacts are also incredibly unstable. I would rather the pillaging exist than to lose history. We could go on as to why those countries are unstable but keeping it bounded to simply the pillaging of artifacts I stand behind it.
Now I'll just be waiting for Italy to return the colleseum stones to Jerusalem. Pretty sure the temple would have been fine, if they would not have destroyed it themeselves.
The "we took it to keep it safe" argument is kinda of weak, and still morally wrong
I'm not sure how many things were taken to keep them safe and not just because "we want this", but I can envision instances where it would be justified. It'd have been nice if people swooped in to rescue the statues the Taliban went around destroying, or saved the rare books that were being burned in Baghdad.
I suppose the nice thing to do in those situations would be to return those artifacts to the areas they came from once the place was reasonably stable, but in some situations that day has yet to come.
You can hand wave all you want. I am not defending the original reason for those artifacts being taken but I am saying for existing countries in the world that are unstable I don’t find your argument to hold much validity.
Europeans routinely destroyed the artifacts of any culture they considered heretical. They tore down Greek and Roman temples to build churches on the ruins. They stripped the Coliseum for parts. They made soup out of mummies and traded grave goods as baubles. The premise that they somehow deserve to be considered the librarians and guardians of the very cultures they colonized and exploited is an absurd, and implicitly racist, imperialist ideal.
You may be right that the political situation has become complicated (the specific case of this obelisk is complicated) but let's not retroactively claim noble intent behind what at the time was little different than what the Vikings did when they showed up at Lindisfarne.
Whereas Antiquity Egyptians were well-known for being a well-behaving people, that never ever dared touch their neighbor's property? Didn't countless Pharaohs proudly inscribed in stone how many foes they killed, how many lands they conquered, how much riches they pillaged?
So you - and a lot of people judging from the comments - believe that it's perfectly legitimate to steal from someone who has ever, themselves, done anything in the past you consider wrong. That morality, ethics and laws should only protect the blameless, and everyone and everything else is fair game.
I have to admit I don't agree, I personally think the morality of a crime doesn't depend upon a value judgement of the of the victim. Theft is theft even if you steal from thieves, and two wrongs as they say don't make a right. But I suppose some people need to assume the victims of imperialism had it coming, but of course they themselves don't.
> believe that it's perfectly legitimate to steal from someone who has ever, themselves, done anything in the past you consider wrong.
That's not my point, no – if only because inter-personal relations are not and should not be handled like inter-state relations.
My point is that human history, especially in crucibles such as e.g. the Mediterranean is such a mess of victors turning to losers, conquerors to conquered, migrations, emigrations, remigrations, internal & external invasion, pillaging, destruction and so forth, that not only (i) the modern countries are all but representative of the people that inhabited them through History, (ii) so deeply intertwined, that trying to bring reparations is a lost cause from the very start.
Let us accept that the French should give back the obelisk: but then, to whom? To Turkey, the descendant country from the Ottoman Empire, who originally gifted it? To ethnic Mamluks, who controlled Egypt at the time as a client state of the Ottoman Empire? To Arabic people, ruled by Mamluks, who invaded Egypt before the Mamluks came into the picture? To Italian, Macedonians, or Greeks, that ruled over Egypt before that? Or should they launch some DNA sampling campaign to find what population in Norther Africa is the closest to the Ancient Egyptians, and bring back the Obelisk there?
This conveniently ignores that Ancient Egyptian monuments were often little cared for by the natives of the land for centuries to the point where they would go and deface ancient statues because religion. I think at some point a zealot was lynched when he tried to damage the Sphinx of Giza though so there's also that. And it's not like ancient European monuments fared any better at the hands of later Europeans. They'd also go and pillage Byzantium FWIW. Likewise the pharaohs would often pride themselves how they killed and dismembered enemies and what riches they brought back as spoils of war. I will not excuse slave trade or tolerate war as a business model, however show me the civilization that did not wage war for gains when in doubt.
> They tore down Greek and Roman temples to build churches on the ruins. They stripped the Coliseum for parts. They made soup out of mummies and traded grave goods as baubles.
And yet they/we changed, and have preserved countless artifacts that even their original cultures are only now interested in. Not to forget that the very promotion of those foreign artifacts played a big role in making Westerners recognize the value of those other cultures and how much we have destroyed!
> Not to forget that the very promotion of those foreign artifacts played a big role in making Westerners recognize the value of those other cultures and how much we have destroyed!
This is kind of where I stand on zoos. It sucks to see animals taken from their homes and held in unnatural captivity but the science, conservation, and educational aspects have a lot of value which is hard to ignore. A lot of people would never care if they didn't see with their own eyes what they stand to lose.
And they should continue changing by repatriating artifacts if the original owners want them back. It's entirely possible that some cultures might prefer having their artifacts be kept by others, but that clearly isn't always the case. For instance, bones and sacred items taken from indigenous peoples.
And as far as instability is concerned, a lot of that was caused by the same imperialist governments that looted the artifacts to begin with, so blaming those governments for that doesn't seem fair.
Recently Buddha's jewels where on the news due to it's british owners putting them up for auction and all the buddhists of the world not being very happy about it
>In broad terms, the messages seek to remind the elite that Ramses had been chosen by the gods and claimed his ancestry from Amun-Re and Maat. Ramses had come to the throne relatively late at the age of 25 years old following the death of his father Seti. Having not been born a king, Ramses used the obelisk as a propaganda tool early in his reign to reinforce his supremacy and divine nature.
Fun facts, prophet Moses is the most mentioned prophet in the Quran even more than Muhammad. The main protagonist during Moses time is Pharaoh and his fake claim of divinity is recorded verbatim in the Quran [1].
Pharaoh declared, “O chiefs! I know of no other god for you but myself. So bake bricks out of clay for me, O Hamân, and build a high tower so I may look at the God of Moses, although I am sure he is a liar.”
[1] Quran Surah Al-Qasas (The Story): Ayat 38:
https://quran.com/en/al-qasas/38
I did not know that, but its not really surprising when you think about it.
What the Quran says about Jesus and about Mary is also interesting.
That’s really cool
Exodus it's fake. Sorry, Jews, but it has no historical roots when the Egyptians were the 'log dudes' from its era, kinda like syslogd under Linux/Unix. They jot down everything, and yet we have no proper sources.
I've seen a few articles on this now. They keep calling it a "secret" message and "hieroglyphic cryptography," but then talk about how sufficiently literate people are supposed to understand it, and the content is along the lines of "The god-king cannot be dethroned" and "Make offerings to the gods." Nothing about this sounds like it was intended to be kept secret or confidential from anyone.
This seems more like fancy typesetting than cryptography, combined with an awareness that the writing at the top of a big tall obelisk will only be readable from a distance.
Crypto-hieroglyphic writing is a real thing: https://www.britannica.com/topic/hieroglyphic-writing/Crypto...
Such writing would give non-standard meanings to signs, or drawn them in non-standard ways, or use entirely invented signs. It would be a puzzle to work out the meaning, and I imagine most people who weren't very literate would be stumped. They certainly stumped egyptologists for a while when the first examples were discovered.
I am looking at the last image in the article, captioned "The encrypted message instructs the viewer to appease the gods with offerings". The picture shows ... a person kneeling in front of a throned figure, offering something with both hands. Is something about this message supposed to be hidden?
I imagine most people who weren't very literate would also be stumped by things written fairly plainly.
From the way they describe how the message is read, it doesn't seem written very plainly at all. It would be odd to assume that this knowledge was accessible to many people if the manner in which it's written is only found in certain circumstances.
I believe enciphered hieroglyphics were covered by David Kahn in The Codebreakers. If memory serves, literate people wouldn't have too much difficulty solving them. The idea was the the plaintext would seem more significant to the reader/codebreaker after they labored for a few hours or a few days working it out. The labor required would add emphasis to what was being communicated.
Sufficiently literate people can understand any encrypted message.
Pi is equal to 3 for sufficiently small values of pi, and sufficiently large values of 3.
https://www.progres.net.eg/plusieurs-messages-caches-sur-lob...
In this article in French, they mention hieroglyphs encoded in the way arms and legs are drawn of a figure on the throne of Tutankhamun, and that only 6 Egyptologists in the whole worlds are able to decode them.
Hmmm, I wonder how mainstream these ideas are? Do other Egyptologists respect them?
The idea of cryptohieroglyphs is accepted as true it seems (at least in France), even though most Egyptologist think they are highly interpretative: think about literature and how some literature expert would interpret Poe's books (sorry only classic US author i know beside Kerouac), except worse.
Still, it's clear ancient egyptians loved their puzzles, the clear interpretation of what they mean is what elude us.
Poe didn't really write books. He's most famous for poems and short stories. He wrote one novel ( The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket) and published a collection of poems.
Not that it matters. Just a bit of trivia. The only thing you need to know is that he's a gazillion times better than Kerouac, who did write books and shouldn't have.
Mark Twain, it's a must read. And not just Huckleberry Finn.
I suspect, that in the context of "reputable academically sound Egyptologist" the number "6" is a bumper crop of Egyptologists. The set of reputable academics in these fields is always a lot smaller than you'd like. I think that's why there's so many cranks.
I struggle with Egyptology as a whole. you watch even mainstream, reputable documentaries on Ancient Egypt and there is a lot of what and little why, and it makes you wonder how much of it is actual science and how much of it is just the most exciting available interpretation of the facts to please the Egyptians/draw in viewers. the Egyptian authorities want tourists, and control archaeology licenses tightly, and "we found a scroll that mentions moving some building materials near the great pyramid" sells far less plane tickets than "we found a scroll written by the architect of The Great Pyramid!!!!"
> and it makes you wonder how much of it is actual science
I don't wonder. You can look up egyptian texts with translations and pronunciation guides. We have literally hundreds of thousands of discarded papyri and plenty of papers detailing the archaeological processes of their excavations and interpretations. It's a gold-mine of explicit documentation about their practices and beliefs and logistics over millennia. We know about their diets, their genetics, how their ruling class changed over time, how they interpreted life and death, to the extent where we can draw likely religious transmission among stories with other near-east religions. The extent of evidence we have demonstrating actual knowledge is better than anything else in the ancient world.
Granted, interpretation isn't science, but it's still expected to be presented rationally. The linguistics that yielded the translation itself proved empirically very reliable.
There are many cranks into Egyptian history with many different agendas, though, and I'm sure many of them call themselves egyptologists.
This is a strange viewpoint, do you care to elaborate? I mean, for ancient Egypt, understanding the writing has its origin in a very clear, well understood event and a very specific researcher's career (Rosetta Stone and Champollion), after which there is a sea of research papers which anyone can go and (spend an education and career) judging for themselves. The documentaries easily skip all that but it's not a big mystery that "all that" is there?
It would be nice if someone created a video similar to the "distance ladder" video but for hieroglyphs. Beyond Champollion and into the progress to now. That would be fascinating. It may exist already.
There appears to be 300 to 500 practicing academic Egyptologists. So from 1% to 2% can read the secret messages.
do they share notes? how do the 6 know their interpretation of the secret meaning is correct.
You can change the link: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/hidden-messages-paris-luxo...
Wow, thanks! That's so much better that I think we can change the link above (from https://archaeology.org/news/2025/05/06/secret-messages-dete...) and re-up the thread.
Yes, this is a much better link.
I must say I'm a little unhappy with how this thread has been usurped to be not about the writing on the obelisk but the appropriateness of it being in Paris. The latter is an important question with no easy answers but completely unrelated to the former.
But the article is about the crypto message.
Yet it also mentions why the obelisk is in Paris: a gift from the, Muslim, Ottoman, ruler of Egypt to France.
Yes and the article also mentions the obelisk was surrounded by scaffolding in preparation for the Olympic games, so feel free to discuss scaffolding, Olympic games, restoration work on ancient monuments, Paris' role in Europe, the impact of modern sports events on urban environments, whatever. Doesn't change the fact the OP is literally about alleged hidden messages on an Egyptian obelisk that happens to be standing in Paris. Had the guy who brought this up been writing about an obelisk still standing in Egypt, how appropriate would it feel to change the subject of the discussion to, I don't know, the legitimacy of Egypt's present government or the fact that a not-so-small number of archaeological sites is being ruined by being part of military compounds? Not very appropriate I'd say.
Oh, Im sorry I think I mis interpreted you.
You want to talk about the crypto, not why the pointy stick is in Paris. Then we're in agreement
Would they ever give the thing back though?
The whole idea of giving things back to Egypt is currently tainted by the complete lack of professional respect everyone else on the planet has for the guy running things there. I could picture institutions saying they'll send artifacts back and then just dragging their feet until he retires.
"Gee, sorry my ancestors stole that thing from that house a hundred plus years ago. Too bad there's a jerk living in the house right at this moment, that's why it hasn't been returned yet."
It's a little strange to have so little morals you accept a stolen gift from conquerors and don't make the slightest effort to return it over a considerable period of time, even after doing such a thing becomes the accepted moral thing to do...and then suddenly develop a conscience and set of morals so particular that "who is running the country" means you can't return it.
It's almost like it's a very thin excuse and not a legitimate reason.
It doesn't belong to France, and it's not France's place to decide that they don't like the particular guy running things at that moment and thus refuse to return it.
Really, Europe just has a massive problem refusing to acknowledge any of the brutally oppressive colonialism it was responsible for across centuries...
Why give it back? It seems like a nice gift.
It was a gift from the Ottoman Empire.
That political entity no longer exists, and the people of Egypt would likely never have willingly parted with the many obelisks and other historical artifacts that have left their shores.
Maybe not, but:
1. You need to draw the line somewhere. It is simply not possible (nor even desirable) to redress all historical wrongs. It seems reasonable to not attempt to redress wrongs which are out of living memory for anyone involved.
2. As others pointed out, the people currently living in Egypt is not the same people who lived there when these things were built anyway, and there was a hell of a lot of conquest to get from there to here. This is not a case where the Ottomans stole it from the original owners. That makes this not a very good candidate for giving it back.
Are the same messages on the obelisk in Central Park? I believe it's essentially the same obelisk. I walk by that one at least once a week. Pretty sad how much the NYC climate has damaged it, though, as opposed to the desert climate it originated from.
The London and NYC ones ('Cleopatra's Needles') are related to each other but I don't think they are related to the Paris one
You're right, I mixed up the Paris and London obelisks.
While hieroglyphic cryptography is a thing (as is BTW "sportive orthography" in Ancient Egyptian), this is not it. I am all for acknowledging that Ancient Egyptian art is often merging writing and depiction in a way that escapes the unprepared who would point to a prominent figure in a grave wall decoration and say 'this is a picture', then point to some hieroglyphs and say 'that is writing'. It's in principle not wrong but misses the point that frequently the choice of hieroglyphs, their orientation and variations in orthography correspond to details of the depicted subject, while the pictures can often be read out, either by describing the participants and their actions, or by naming the parts.
As for the latter, there's a statue of "Ramesses II (Dyn XIX) as a Child"[1] which shows Horus as a falcon with the sun (rꜥ) on his breast, a child (ms) beneath it, in his hand a sedge plant (sw). Naming the parts—sun, child, sedge—in this order gives rꜥmssw, vocalized raꜥmissaw, roughly maybe approximately [raʕ'missaw], in any event the very name of Ramesses, meaning "He is / was born / brought forth by Ra / the Sun". Note that you'll have to choose to omit ḥr "Horus" although the falcon dominates the sculpture, and that the sedge does not represent a plant but, by virtue of sounding like it, the 3rd person suffix sw "he", so there's some guesswork involved. All said, it's a fine example of a "rebus".
Neither rebus reading nor pictorial description are commonly classified as cryptographic orthography in Egyptology.
The statue demonstrates nicely how acutely aware of their language, their artistic traditions and their writing Egyptian artists were. When we look at the depiction of Pharaoh and Amun on the obelisk as explained by Olette-Pelletier, however, we hardly see any of this. Yes, an arm with an offering on the palm of the hand was often used to write dy "to give", but usually those offerings are triangular bread loaves, not round nw vessels. Yes, the hieroglyph for "ḥtp" looks like a flat rectangle but, again, with a bread offering on it which is missing from the flat rectangle that pharaoh is kneeling on.
I really wonder what the fuzz is about; clearly it's a picture of the king giving offering to the god, and all he does is read out the picture. This is something that you can do with a lot of Egyptian art: there's the king, you know him by the distinctive crown, and there's Amun, which you know again by his distinctive headdress sporting two long feathers. The king is kneeling because he's offering, and he has his arms stretched out presenting stuff because he's, well, giving. The king is giving things to the god. What part of that was not known before, what part of that is cryptographic?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ramesses_II_as_child.jpg
Very interesting. Could this just be a miscommunication caused by a blogger literally looking to write clickbait? Hype up a paper without revealing its main conclusion? I would have no way of knowing if this very literal reading of the scene contains some wordplay that would require knowing how these words sounded.
Well let's say the editors of at least some of the publications that carried the news in a sensationalist tone should've known better but they apparently were more in for more clicks as opposed to critical thinking and informed judgement.
That said I'm no Egyptologist myself as seemingly the journalists aren't, either, but as for me I'm itching to write a scathing takedown of this affair. I'm open to discovering that maybe the originator of the theory was misunderstood by the media, maybe his wording was not clear enough. I guess what I want to say is when you want clicks there's more than one way to do it; my way would roughly be (1) criticize use of the term 'cryptography' when all they do is tell me what they see in the picture: king giving offerings to god; king's sitting on a mat(?), god's standing on a plinth (as is customary); (2) criticize the very specific interpretation they give for this particular depiction when we find this same motive all over the place, all of the time; (3) criticize the claim that only nobles travelling by boat would have been able to see and understand the message when in Ancient Egypt taking a boat to cross the river as well as, as a local of Thebes, taking part in festivities must both have been very commonplace for old and young, rich and poor alike; also, artists in general and, for example, the foremen of worker gangs working on Khufu's pyramid were very well able to use writing and depictions to express themselves.
The news article was a true click-bait.
The messages were not secret at all, they were just written on the face of the obelisk that faces the river. Meaning that only visitors by boat would read them when docking rather than the poor pedestrians using the normal road.
(we've since changed the URL above - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43925101)
It's like an ancient version of
> You see the new and improved Oval Office as it becomes more and more beautiful with love. We handle it with great love and 24 carat gold. That always helps too. But it’s been a lot of fun going over some of the beautiful pictures that were stored in the vaults that were for many, many years, in some cases over 100 years, stored in vaults of the great presidents or almost great presidents or all having a reason for being up every one of them.
Every time I see a quote from him, I assume it must be parody.
This one seems to be real, though, complete with the bit at the end where his brain broke down entirely.
It’s kind of reminiscent of early GPT-2, where it would seem kinda comprehensible for a bit and then just trail off into nonsense.
No way this was ever said. No way. It's so wild it's funny. I ought to follow US news more (and sorry for people who live there).
It's a testament to his public speaking skills that transcripts of his statements are so startling.
See: https://youtu.be/f_ggYP-VO2s?t=45
It's genuinely not bad as long as you don't have terminally online syndrome. The vast majority of the country, even people who don't like Trump, gets along with their everyday lives without stressing out about him. It's just that most people commenting on forums online are terminally online and get very worked up about things.
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It was a gift from Egypt
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_Obelisks
Egypt was subjugated to the Ottoman Empire at the time.
And even if they had some kind of king/dictator, it is certainly was a decision of a free people.
What antique France monuments did France give away just like that for no reason? Do not take what should not have been offered.
> What antique France monuments did France give away just like that for no reason?
It may stretch the definition of "antique" but does the Statue of Liberty count? Nations give other nations things all the time, and when power changes hands that doesn't negate those gifts of the spirit in which they were offered.
Ottoman did not make the gift they gave to France. A democracy should not accept a tyrant giving a ancient gift from it "people"
It was _essentially_ independent by then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Egypt_under_the_Muh...
It was in principle still part of the Ottoman Empire, but not really meaningfully under their control.
the ruler was maybe somewhat independent, the nation was not.
Romans also considered Herolds to be a just ruler of an "free" Judea as far as they are conceres. That's how often subjugation works.
It was kind of the opposite, AIUI; the Ottomans claimed that Muhammad Ali was just a regional governor, but the country was de facto independent; the Ottomans had no ability to control it.
How do you know? It was not free. The people certainly were not free.
> The people certainly were not free.
Oh, no, definitely not. I mean, it was the early 19th century; not _literally having slaves_ was considered a dangerously radical experiment that even revolutionary France could only half-commit to. Freedom wasn't a big thing in the early 19th century.
But Egypt under Muhammad Ali was about as independent as any country was at the time, really. It controlled its own domestic and foreign policy, had its own military, and _invaded its nominal suzerain_, taking Syria off the Ottomans.
So Palestinians should get their lands back?
Actually, that's interresting.
According to wikipedia[0], the frenchs did think about stealing it during the Napoleonic wars, but didn't. Some time later they "suggested" to the Ottomans that the obelisks be offered, in exchange for a monumental clock[1]
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_Obelisks#Luxor_Obelisk...
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Citadel_Clock
In any case, it didn't belong to the Ottomans to give away.
Getting it as gift from a conquering entity, does not make any of it better.
I mean, if you really want to go down this way, it does not really belong to the Egyptians either. It's not because current-day Egyptians share the same land as antiquity Egyptians that they are the same people – countless waves of war, massacres, migrations, emigrations happened in the last 4 millenia.
By that logic who does it belong to? How long does someone need to be in an area to be the "owner" of it. The people on Egypt currently weren't there when it was moved. Why should they get it? The people that were there when it was moved definitely weren't there 3000 years ago when it was made. Did they own it? In fact who owns anything in the world?
That is just silly. Should we demand Iran returns things from Greece, Egypt, etc that they acquired during the Persian empire? Should Egypt return things they acquired from their neighbors in the past?
Depends on "acquired" means. Pillages as part of a war? Then yes, why not give it back? "Acquired" in terms of gifted by the other party, like this Obelisk, then no, that wouldn't make sense. Same goes for purchased.
But things stolen with violence or threat of violence, should probably be returned (if they want it returned). While we shouldn't hold children responsible for the actions of our parents, we can also be better than our parents and return things we know aren't rightfully ours.
Off-topic, but you're probably one of the top 3 persons in the world with the most similar first+last name as myself, with a Levenshtein Distance of only 6 :)
Americans "purchased" new york from the natives after feeding them alcohol to decimate their population for a few dollars.
Everything in America is "pillaged" I guess and should be returned. Seems unrealistic.
Honestly, I would have more respect for people who do land acknowledgements if they tried to give the land back. I don't think they should (because I believe that we shouldn't attempt to fix the sins of those who are long since dead), but at least then they would be attempting to walk the walk. Right now it comes off very poorly because people go "this land belongs to the natives" and then happily continue to possess it as if saying "well you own this technically" makes everything alright.
You must be well impressed with Gough Whitlam and Eddie Mabo et al then.
> to fix the sins of those who are long since dead
A good number of land right issues and acts of racism began with those long dead and continued forward under the actions of generations that followed, perpetuated in some form by some still living.
In a US context there are still current acts of administration that impact native title and rights to reservations that are current and contentious.
Is the US planning on giving back the Statue of Liberty? Would make as much sense
You can keep it, it's pretty where it is. And we already have like 20 of those: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicas_of_the_Statue_of_Libe...
TBH, the statue of liberty was a gift while the obelisks were pillaged.
...they weren't?
They were, Egypt was conquered at the time.
The empires pillaged it and gifted it among themselves.
What nations have never been conquered at any time? Rulers come and go. Countries are born and die and become new countries that get conquered and become something else ruled by someone else. Everything in America can be considered "pillaged" by that same standard, but would you see it all returned?
If you know who it belongs to, sure.
I stand corrected. The pillaging was initially planned but failed and it was gifted under circumstances that are not clear from the Wikipedia article.
It was too complex to steal, and Ottomans historical alliance with France, while disturbed by Napoleon, was still strong after his coup ended (France had sovereignty over a lot of small territories in the Ottoman empire due to their "protector of the Church" status).
That we don't know what was traded exactly (some people say it's the Cairo clock, but it is unclear and probably false) doesn't matter. The fact that Champollion already translated the rosetta stone from ancient greek and that hieroglyph could now be translated probably had an impact on this decision, especially since among all the Obelisks in egypt, Champollion singled out this particular one.
Any idea why the ottomans felt obliged to "gift" another obelisk to the brits though?
Yes, probably because the British helped the ottomans push back the Napoleonic army before they could enter 'true' ottoman lands (basically stopped them at Rafah or something, I have to check) then let the ottomans retake Egypt for free, without involving other regional powers (it was under ottoman rules in name only when Napoleon was sent there, and truly ruled by ottomans when he got kicked out). I have _not_ read about the English empire in this era, so I might be absolutely wrong. I mostly know French (and Italian somehow) 'modern' history (and only part of it, im not well read on the first Napoléonic empire, just on the moments before, the moments after, and the late second empire)
While I generally understand the sentiment, I would also argue that most of the countries that have been pillaged of artifacts are also incredibly unstable. I would rather the pillaging exist than to lose history. We could go on as to why those countries are unstable but keeping it bounded to simply the pillaging of artifacts I stand behind it.
Now I'll just be waiting for Italy to return the colleseum stones to Jerusalem. Pretty sure the temple would have been fine, if they would not have destroyed it themeselves.
The "we took it to keep it safe" argument is kinda of weak, and still morally wrong
I'm not sure how many things were taken to keep them safe and not just because "we want this", but I can envision instances where it would be justified. It'd have been nice if people swooped in to rescue the statues the Taliban went around destroying, or saved the rare books that were being burned in Baghdad.
I suppose the nice thing to do in those situations would be to return those artifacts to the areas they came from once the place was reasonably stable, but in some situations that day has yet to come.
You can hand wave all you want. I am not defending the original reason for those artifacts being taken but I am saying for existing countries in the world that are unstable I don’t find your argument to hold much validity.
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Europeans routinely destroyed the artifacts of any culture they considered heretical. They tore down Greek and Roman temples to build churches on the ruins. They stripped the Coliseum for parts. They made soup out of mummies and traded grave goods as baubles. The premise that they somehow deserve to be considered the librarians and guardians of the very cultures they colonized and exploited is an absurd, and implicitly racist, imperialist ideal.
You may be right that the political situation has become complicated (the specific case of this obelisk is complicated) but let's not retroactively claim noble intent behind what at the time was little different than what the Vikings did when they showed up at Lindisfarne.
Whereas Antiquity Egyptians were well-known for being a well-behaving people, that never ever dared touch their neighbor's property? Didn't countless Pharaohs proudly inscribed in stone how many foes they killed, how many lands they conquered, how much riches they pillaged?
So you - and a lot of people judging from the comments - believe that it's perfectly legitimate to steal from someone who has ever, themselves, done anything in the past you consider wrong. That morality, ethics and laws should only protect the blameless, and everyone and everything else is fair game.
I have to admit I don't agree, I personally think the morality of a crime doesn't depend upon a value judgement of the of the victim. Theft is theft even if you steal from thieves, and two wrongs as they say don't make a right. But I suppose some people need to assume the victims of imperialism had it coming, but of course they themselves don't.
Good luck with that, and keep your doors locked.
> believe that it's perfectly legitimate to steal from someone who has ever, themselves, done anything in the past you consider wrong.
That's not my point, no – if only because inter-personal relations are not and should not be handled like inter-state relations.
My point is that human history, especially in crucibles such as e.g. the Mediterranean is such a mess of victors turning to losers, conquerors to conquered, migrations, emigrations, remigrations, internal & external invasion, pillaging, destruction and so forth, that not only (i) the modern countries are all but representative of the people that inhabited them through History, (ii) so deeply intertwined, that trying to bring reparations is a lost cause from the very start.
Let us accept that the French should give back the obelisk: but then, to whom? To Turkey, the descendant country from the Ottoman Empire, who originally gifted it? To ethnic Mamluks, who controlled Egypt at the time as a client state of the Ottoman Empire? To Arabic people, ruled by Mamluks, who invaded Egypt before the Mamluks came into the picture? To Italian, Macedonians, or Greeks, that ruled over Egypt before that? Or should they launch some DNA sampling campaign to find what population in Norther Africa is the closest to the Ancient Egyptians, and bring back the Obelisk there?
This conveniently ignores that Ancient Egyptian monuments were often little cared for by the natives of the land for centuries to the point where they would go and deface ancient statues because religion. I think at some point a zealot was lynched when he tried to damage the Sphinx of Giza though so there's also that. And it's not like ancient European monuments fared any better at the hands of later Europeans. They'd also go and pillage Byzantium FWIW. Likewise the pharaohs would often pride themselves how they killed and dismembered enemies and what riches they brought back as spoils of war. I will not excuse slave trade or tolerate war as a business model, however show me the civilization that did not wage war for gains when in doubt.
> They tore down Greek and Roman temples to build churches on the ruins. They stripped the Coliseum for parts. They made soup out of mummies and traded grave goods as baubles.
And yet they/we changed, and have preserved countless artifacts that even their original cultures are only now interested in. Not to forget that the very promotion of those foreign artifacts played a big role in making Westerners recognize the value of those other cultures and how much we have destroyed!
> Not to forget that the very promotion of those foreign artifacts played a big role in making Westerners recognize the value of those other cultures and how much we have destroyed!
This is kind of where I stand on zoos. It sucks to see animals taken from their homes and held in unnatural captivity but the science, conservation, and educational aspects have a lot of value which is hard to ignore. A lot of people would never care if they didn't see with their own eyes what they stand to lose.
And they should continue changing by repatriating artifacts if the original owners want them back. It's entirely possible that some cultures might prefer having their artifacts be kept by others, but that clearly isn't always the case. For instance, bones and sacred items taken from indigenous peoples.
And as far as instability is concerned, a lot of that was caused by the same imperialist governments that looted the artifacts to begin with, so blaming those governments for that doesn't seem fair.
Recently Buddha's jewels where on the news due to it's british owners putting them up for auction and all the buddhists of the world not being very happy about it
Are you planning to return the genes in you that came from other nationalities and tribes?
>(also looking at you, England and Italy...)
*Great Britain, and whoever.
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